Systems thinking suggests that one can best understand a complex system by studying the interrelationships of its component parts rather than looking at the individual parts in isolation. With ongoing concern about the effects of climate change, using innovative materials to help students understand how Earth's systems connect with each other is…

This article focuses on some of the issues that shape understandings of professional practice in the rapidly expanding context of children's centres in England. Drawing on data from an ESRC-funded project exploring practitioners' understandings of quality and success, the perspectives of 115 practitioners working in 11 Sure Start Children's…

This Wallace "Perspective" summarizes a decade of foundation research and work in school leadership to identify what it is that effective school principals do. It concludes that they carry out five key actions particularly well, including shaping a vision of academic success for all students and cultivating leadership in others. The…

When Goldilocks finds three bowls of porridge at different temperatures in the three bears' house, she accurately assesses the situation and comes up with one of the most recognizable lines in children's literature," This porridge is too hot; this porridge is too cold; aahh, this porridge is just right!" Goldilocks' famous line is a perfect…

The goal of this article is to frame some new directions to social comparison research in organizational settings. Four themes are developed. First, we examine the role of organizational variables in shaping the basic sub processes in social comparison, such as the selection of referents. The second theme focuses on the meaning of level of…

Discusses a study that investigated the ability of national economic trends to predict enrollment in community colleges. Reports that unemployment rate, gross domestic product, dollars disposable income, and personal consumption expenditures are good indicators of trends in community college enrollment, but that consumer price index and average…

Bridging the areas of political-economic sociology, the sociology of agriculture and environmental sociology, this study tests two hypotheses derived from a refined theory of foreign investment dependence. The hypotheses state that pesticide and fertilizer use intensity in less-developed countries are both positively associated with foreign…

This article describes the evolution of full service schools. Full service schools stress prevention, collaboration and systems change. Prevention is geared toward corrections, mental health and welfare, all topics of keen interest to people working in and studying criminal justice. By providing mental health services at the school for both…

The factors influencing active learning in small enterprises were examined. Data from earlier Australian studies were examined in an attempt to provide a framework that might inform the relationship between educational systems and small enterprises. Special attention was paid to a 1988 study of systematic differences between small businesses that…